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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28277838">prove your body wrong</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardreamertwo/pseuds/stardreamertwo'>stardreamertwo</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Critical Role (Web Series)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Blood and Injury, Exhaustion, Hurt Caduceus Clay, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Sickfic, Snowed In, the inherent romanticism of saving someone</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 22:21:54</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,217</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28277838</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardreamertwo/pseuds/stardreamertwo</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The Mighty Nein try to leave Eiselcross. But something has laid claim to one of them, and it doesn't like letting go.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Caduceus Clay/Fjord</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>53</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Critmas Exchange 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>prove your body wrong</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chrome/gifts">catalists (Chrome)</a>.</li>



    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It starts when they’re walking home.</p><p>He’ll beat himself up about that later, that it took so long to realize. They’re all distracted- caught up in thoughts about Lucien or Molly or the remnants of a ritual they’d barely stopped- but that doesn’t make it okay, that Fjord doesn’t know when it started. That Fjord doesn’t know how long it’s been going on.</p><p>Still. He notices it first here, as they trudge back toward Balenpost, so for all that Fjord knows it starts here too, when Caduceus walks forward and nearly plunges through an ice sheet.</p><p>He grabs Caduceus’s arm and tugs him back, pulling them both off balance. By luck, he manages to stay upright long enough for them both to find their footing again, but it takes a second before he lets go.</p><p>“Running water,” Fjord says, quietly, staring at it. It’s the third crumbling path they’ve hit today- and, he’s reminded, the third one Caduceus nearly ran into- and he already knew Eiselcross was deadly but almost feels like the place is <em>trying</em> to kill them.</p><p>Or maybe it’s just unstable. Fjord thinks back to the ritual and shudders.</p><p>“Did you not hear it?” he asks, and Caduceus shakes his head.</p><p>“No.” His ears twitch. “I do now.”</p><p>It wouldn’t be odd, if not for the way Caduceus is frowning. Up close, Fjord can see bags under his eyes, the drawn way they all look after a night without enough rest, and he notices, now, that Caduceus is shaking.</p><p>“Are you alright?”</p><p>“Yeah,” he says, staring at his hands. He looks half-there, if that, something far and foreign in his eyes. Then he blinks and looks up, and there’s more certainty this time. “Yeah. I will be.”</p><p>It doesn’t quite stop Fjord from worrying, but there’ll be time to press it later. He nods, and slowly, carefully, they back away from the thin snowbank. The group huddles together, and then they begin to backtrack, away from the danger and towards what, hopefully, will be a safer path.</p><p>They don’t get much farther that day. The backtracking takes time, it’s dangerous to travel once it gets dark, and besides, they’re all exhausted. Fjord’s whole body aches, and he thinks he sees Caduceus sway on his feet, once. He steps a little closer, just in case.</p><p>Caleb jams his stick into the snow. After a moment, the tower opens up before them, and there’s a wave of relief as they all file in.</p><p>Fjord is the last to enter, but he stops, just before the threshold, and looks back out at the landscape. He’s not sure what he’s looking for- it’s not like anything followed them here, or could follow them in.</p><p>But when he looks, it is too dark to see the sky.</p><p>Dinner that night is a quiet affair. No one really wants to talk, right then, and Fjord doesn’t even know what there is to say.</p><p>It’s not exactly surprising, when he can’t get to sleep that night.</p><p>He doesn’t know what time it is when he finally gives up and gets out of bed. Nor, for that matter, does he know where he’s going until he finds himself in front of Caduceus’s door.</p><p>He can understand what led him here, at least. Caduceus is a healer, a source of guidance, and right now Fjord just feels lost. But it’s late. Caduceus is probably asleep, anyway, and they’ve got a hard day of travel again tomorrow. Fjord didn’t even intend to come here, and one night of unpleasantness isn’t worth waking Caduceus.</p><p>And then the door opens, and Caduceus is standing there.</p><p>“Can’t sleep?” he says.</p><p>“Uh. No.”</p><p>Caduceus gives him a little smile and steps back, leaving the door open. It’s an invitation, and Fjord takes it, walking into the room. In the corner, a kettle whistles.</p><p>“Do you want tea?” Caduceus asks. “I have chamomile. It’s good for sleep.”</p><p>So he couldn’t sleep either, then. Fjord nods. “That would be great, actually.”</p><p>He pulls two cups and a small tin out, setting them on the table, before he shakes out a handful of flowers and pour them into the kettle. Then they wait, while Fjord tries to think of something to say.</p><p>Caduceus beats him to it.</p><p>“It’s not your fault, you know.”</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“Lucien. Don’t blame yourself.”</p><p>“I- I know. I’m not.” It’s the truth, really. It’s not their fault, that Lucien did what he did. And they’d broken the ritual, anyway. But he had looked like Molly when he was fighting them, and- for Fjord knew that Molly was gone, that there was no Molly to save, he’d still wanted to. He thinks they all wanted to. And it shouldn’t feel so much like a loss, all over again, but it does.</p><p>“I just think- You didn’t know Molly, but he would have hated this. He never wanted anything to do with his past.”</p><p>After a moment, Caduceus says, “It’s a dark thing.”</p><p>“Yeah.”</p><p>“Sometimes dark things get a hold on people, and it’s not easy to pull them out.”</p><p>“You did,” Fjord says, immediately.</p><p>“Not really.”</p><p>“You saved me.”</p><p>“<em>You</em> saved you. I helped.”</p><p>“I wouldn’t have ever found Her if it wasn’t for you.”</p><p>Caduceus shakes his head. “You would have found your way eventually. To Her, or to anyone, but to something good.”</p><p>It’s meant to be comfort for him, but it feels like Caduceus is trying to predict something, to get ahead of some awful inevitable future. There’s something unsettled in the way Caduceus is looking at him, and Fjord can’t fix it- doesn’t even know what it is- but he wants to, desperately.</p><p>“You showed me the way,” he says. “She wouldn’t have brought you to us, to me, if you weren’t supposed to be here. And we’re supposed to help you too, because She brought us to you. Right?”</p><p>“Right.”</p><p>“So. We’re meant to get each other out of here. Together.”</p><p>For a moment, Caduceus just looks at him.</p><p>Then he says, “Together,” and some unseen tension dissolves.</p><p>It doesn’t solve the problem. But Fjord watches some of the worry fade, as they sit there drinking tea, and he feels certainty settle in his bones. Whatever’s here- whatever Caduceus is scared of- it doesn’t get to have him.</p><p>They won’t lose anyone. He won’t lose anyone. Not if he can stop it.</p><p>He and Caduceus stay there for a while, in the soft, gentle silence, and when Fjord goes back to his room he does so feeling lighter.</p><p>The next morning, Fjord pulls himself out of bed and into the common room for breakfast just in time to see Dagen check outside the door. He’s gone for maybe thirty seconds before he comes back in, snow already coating the tips of his beard.</p><p>“Storm’s come in,” he says, shaking his head. “You don’t have any time-pressure things going on right now, do you?”</p><p>They all look at each other.</p><p>“We don’t want to stay any longer than we have to,” Veth says.</p><p>“Yeah, well, might want to hunker down until it passes. You could get a day of walking in this, but much more than that’ll probably kill you.”</p><p>“That doesn’t sound like much of a choice,” Beau points out.</p><p>Dagen shrugs. “You’re not wrong.”</p><p>There’s not really much of an argument, after that. Besides, they all remember what happened the last time they traveled in a storm, and no one wants to repeat that experience.</p><p>“Well,” Caleb says, after a moment, “if we are set staying for the day, I will need to recast the mansion.”</p><p>“Now?” Yasha asks.</p><p>“At some point before dark. I will send up a cat sometime later to ask you all to come down, is that good?”</p><p>Various noises of agreement sound around the table.</p><p>It’s about three, maybe, when a cat enters Fjord’s room and meows insistently. Fjord side-eyes it, but reaches for his coat. The cat remains, tail waving behind it.</p><p>“You can go now. I’m coming.”</p><p>It meows again and leaves. Fjord gets the distinct sense that it’s miffed about being dismissed and decides that can be Caleb’s problem, if it ever comes up.</p><p>Once they’re all in the common room, Caduceus moves to the door.</p><p>“So we leave now?”</p><p>Caleb nods. “When you’re all out, I can drop the spell and recast it, and then we will have another 24 hours before it kicks us out.”</p><p>“It can do that?” Jester asks.</p><p>“Not if I recast it,” Caleb tells her.</p><p>“Well, no time like the present,” Caduceus says, and he steps out. Fjord follows.</p><p>Dagen was right about the weather. The cold slams into him as soon as he leaves, and he has to squint against the howling wind as tiny bits of ice pummel his nose and cheeks. They huddle together while Caleb casts, and while it’s not much protection, he’ll take what he can get.</p><p>After a minute that seems far longer, the portal opens up again, and Caleb waves them back in. Everyone else immediately heads for the door, but Fjord gets in and turns around to see Caduceus, lingering. He looks <em>scared</em>, and Fjord’s about to come back out when Caduceus takes a breath, as if steeling himself for something, and steps in.</p><p>There’s a sound, a gasping, choked thing that might have been a scream, and Caduceus begins to bleed.</p><p>Fjord’s there to catch him when he falls. Caduceus’s coat soaks up the blood but it hides whatever’s doing this to him, and Fjord scrabbles at it, wet hands slipping off the pin. Beau’s by his side then, helping, and together they tug the coat away from his body.</p><p>One bright red eye stares back up at them from the right side of Caduceus’s neck.</p><p>Jester gasps behind him. Fjord’s eyes flick wildly between the door and Caduceus, and he remembers the fear- he hadn’t wanted to come in, had he <em>known</em>- and on a prayer Fjord pulls Caduceus into his arms and throws them both out of the tower.</p><p>It is no kinder the second time, worse for the fear and the blood freezing to crystal on his skin. Caduceus’s clothes are soaked, and Fjord can feel him beginning to shake- he curls around Caduceus tighter, as if that can protect him from the storm, and stares, unblinking, at the wound.</p><p>It’s already closing. It takes far too long to seal entirely.</p><p>Fjord struggles out of his own coat and wraps it around Caduceus. The chill sharpens, unforgiving, and they’re both shivering now but Fjord doesn’t let go.</p><p>After a minute, warmth seals up around them, and the wind quiets down. Fjord takes a deep breath and pulls away from Caduceus as he starts to come back to himself. Even in the small area, Fjord tries to give him as much space as he can, but he knows he’s staring.</p><p>They’re all staring.</p><p>“What was that?” Yasha says, finally.</p><p>Caduceus takes a moment, to answer.</p><p>“I’ve been dreaming,” he says, voice trembling, as doubtful as Fjord has ever heard him. “About the city.”</p><p>“And you didn’t tell us?” Beau snaps.</p><p>“I thought it would . . . stop. When we got out of Eiselcross.”</p><p>Fjord glances outside the dome, where the snow is so thick he can’t see five feet. Even if they wanted to, they couldn’t leave.</p><p>“So that was the city? In there?” Yasha asks, and Caleb swears.</p><p>“I should have known,” he says, very quickly. “It is- easier, sometimes, to access extradimensional entities from an extradimensional plane. The mansion is in a small pocket of the Astral Sea, and if the city is too- it might have found you that way.”</p><p> “So we can’t go back in the tower anymore,” Jester says, and it’s not a question but Caduceus acts like is.</p><p>“No. It’s safer there than it is out here.”</p><p>“You were just attacked there.”              </p><p>“And <em>only</em> me. I don’t think it can see the rest of you yet. I- I’m the only one it’s got a hold of.”</p><p>Fjord thinks of last night, and then tries very hard not to think of it at all.</p><p>“So what do we do?” he asks, instead.</p><p>“The tower will last a day, and this-“ Caleb taps the wall of the dome, “-will stay for eight hours.”</p><p>But the snow is already piling up around the sides, and they’ll need to recast it long before then.</p><p>“Can you-“ Veth asks, but Caleb is already shaking his head.</p><p>“Not through the night.”</p><p>Eventually, Dagen says, “We can dig a shelter in the snow. It’ll fit one, maybe two people, but it’ll be safe in this.”</p><p>“Two,” Fjord says, immediately. Caduceus is still shaking.</p><p>No one has any better ideas.</p><p>The shelter takes them nearly three hours to dig, and that’s with everyone helping. Dagen finds a snow drift, and Caleb recasts the dome nearby. Caduceus leans against one wall, breathing slowly, eyes closed- it almost looks like he’s sleeping, but Fjord watches as his eyes open and he stares, stricken, at the snow, before he curls up a little tighter.</p><p>Fjord takes first watch. Yasha tells him she’ll come back out to switch. They trade coats, hers for Caduceus’s wet one, and then he and Caduceus crawl into the tiny, cold space.</p><p>It’s better than being outside, but that doesn’t make it warm. Fjord hands over the coat; Caduceus is taller than Yasha, but thinner, and it nearly buries him. He looks even paler like that, covered in a swath of black against the snow. Fjord tries, and fails, not to be reminded of a shroud.</p><p>The temperature is freezing, but there’s nothing they can do about it. A fire will suffocate them, and they’ve already got the rod of warming activated, along with all the layers the others can spare.</p><p>Caduceus sets out incense anyway, laying it out in a careful circle and pouring a few dried leaves from his tea tin in the middle. He settles himself before the leaves and breathes in, before he opens his eyes and looks at Fjord.</p><p>“Pray with me?”</p><p>Fjord blinks. It’s been a while since Caduceus has asked him. Still, he sits across the circle, closes his eyes, and tries to match the rhythm of Caduceus’s steady, even breathing.</p><p>“Wildmother,” he starts, and then pauses. “Is there a way to leave this storm?”</p><p>The air around them doesn’t change. At first, Fjord thinks it’s just because Caduceus is the one communing. Even though She speaks to him sometimes, Fjord’s never been able to ask answers from the wind the way Caduceus can.</p><p>Then he hears Caduceus say, very quietly, “Mother?”</p><p>There is nothing for a moment. Then two.</p><p>Fjord hears Caduceus’s breathing hitch.</p><p>And then the wind swells into them, near vicious in its warmth, rushing through his ears- his eyes fly open and he puts a hand out to steady himself and then it’s gone, just as sudden as it came, leaving them both gasping in its wake.</p><p>“Caduceus,” he says, breathless, “Caduceus, what was that?”</p><p>He doesn't answer. Instead he starts to cough, slow at first, then harsher, louder. until he is hunched over on himself and hacking. Fjord scrambles towards him but his hands stop, hovering inches away- he wants to reach for what little healing he has but it was the commune that started this in the first place, and Fjord is terrified of making it worse. Something is wrong, with Caduceus or the wild mother or this place, he doesn't know, and so he sits there, desperate to help with no idea how.</p><p>Eventually, the coughs taper off. Caduceus straightens up as best he can, and when he looks up Fjord sees a line of blood trickle from the corner of his mouth.</p><p>“She didn’t know,” Caduceus says. His eyes are distant, and Fjord sees them shine with tears. “She warned me not to contact her again. It doesn’t like holy magic.”</p><p>He has a thousand questions. He doesn’t even know where to start.</p><p>There are extra rags in their packs and that is the only thing that gets Fjord moving again. He digs through until he finds a clean one, and then he approaches, holding it up like a peace offering. Caduceus lets him get close, and Fjord wipes the blood off his chin. He shrugs off his coat, drapes it over Caduceus’s shoulders for all the extra warmth it can give.  </p><p>Slowly, he watches Caduceus come back to himself, the life bleeding back into his eyes. It takes far too long.</p><p>Without his coat, the Wildmother’s pin on his chest is exposed. The cold leaches heat from the metal- it stings when he touches it. Fjord holds it anyway, tight enough that the edges of the anchor bite into his skin, and prays.</p><p><em>Wildmother</em>, he thinks. <em>We can’t lose him. Please.</em></p><p>He gets no answer.</p><p>They trade shifts all through the night and into the day. Caduceus doesn’t sleep: what rest he can get is fitful, broken by nightmares that wake him terrified and frozen, staring at something no one else can see. If they can’t do something, the exhaustion will kill him. But the storm has gotten no calmer, and Fjord finds himself in the common room, checking the portal over and over again, as if he’ll get a different view.</p><p>Jester wakes him up there, late in the night, when she comes back in from the snow.</p><p>“How is he?” Fjord asks.</p><p>“He’s- dreaming. I wanted to try to fix it, but you said it didn’t like holy magic, and . . .”</p><p>She trails off, standing there. It looks like she is trying very hard not to cry.</p><p>“We- we shouldn’t leave him alone,” Jester says, after a moment. “You should probably go.”</p><p>Fjord nods. Neither of them say anything, as he passes by her and walks out into the cold.</p><p>When he crawls into the snow cave, Caduceus is sitting in front of a tea kettle, steaming in the snow, and he looks up at the entrance when Fjord starts to come through.</p><p>“Hey.”</p><p>“Hey,” Fjord responds, because he doesn’t know what else to say. He catalogues the darker hollows in Caduceus’s face, the toll another sleepless night has taken on him. Around the kettle, snow melts.</p><p>“Do you want tea?” Caduceus asks. “Jester heated the water.”</p><p>“Sure,” Fjord says. It comes out slightly choked.</p><p>Caduceus picks up the kettle and stops, staying just above the teacup. His hands shake too badly to pour. Gently Ford takes it from him and in the ensuing silence he pours two small cups of tea, passing the first to caduceus. In the cup, the water trembles, but if it spills over into caduceus's hands he doesn't react.</p><p>Any warmth the tea might have had is gone before Fjord finishes it. He sets the empty cup back with their things and then he crawls out, to check their surroundings. It might be nearing sunset, but he can’t tell, in the darkness of the storm. There’s nothing out there, of course, just the snow and the wind, but he checks anyway. Scrapes built up snow away from the entrance.</p><p>It makes him feel less useless, at least.</p><p>Caduceus is shivering, eyes closed, when Fjord comes back in. He’s wrapped in as many blankets as they have but Fjord knows he hasn’t been sleeping, and there’s not much he can do to retain heat, when he’s got so little energy to begin with.</p><p>Fjord comes closer, and opens up his coat.</p><p>“Hey. Come here.”</p><p>Caduceus blinks his eyes open and looks at him.</p><p>“You’re freezing. It’ll be warmer.”</p><p>He hesitates for a moment longer, but eventually he shifts over. Fjord takes the blankets and adjust them as best he can, to maximize their heat. Caduceus is ice-cold against his skin, and Fjord takes his fingers and presses them between his hands, as if he can push the warmth back into them. He feels too small like this, too thin, as if Fjord could blink and the person he’s holding would be gone.</p><p>Caduceus’s breathing is short and shallow. Fjord focuses on it, irrationally afraid of every exhale, and irrationally relieved every time he breaths in again. Eventually, his eyes close again, and it’s not sleep, not the kind Caduceus so desperately needs, but it’s rest, at least.</p><p>It will have to be enough.</p><p>Beau comes to the cave, after a few hours. Fjord doesn’t leave to get her. He’s terrified if he does, Caduceus won’t be here when he gets back.</p><p>Their eyes meet, when she comes in, and Fjord says, “We have to go.”</p><p>The storm hasn’t stopped. They both know that. But if they don’t try to leave now, Caduceus will die. They have to take the chance.</p><p>Beau nods. “I’ll get the others.”</p><p>The blizzard howls at them as they leave. It sounds furious. It sounds like a threat. Yasha takes as much of Caduceus’s weight as she can, and the others gather round, shielding them from as much hail as they can.</p><p>It’s not much. They’re barely making any progress, and there are no visible landmarks to guide them. There is nothing but the darkness, and the roar of the storm.</p><p>They lose Veth an hour in.</p><p>Fjord doesn’t know what happens, only that Caleb stops still and starts calling her name. He gets it out, once, twice, and then the third time the wind cuts through his voice halfway through and he disappears, too. The wind gets louder, angrier, whirling and tearing at them- Fjord has to look down, to shield his face from the ice, and when he looks up Beau and Jester are missing, too. He turns, searching for Caduceus and Yasha in the storm, and there is nothing.</p><p>There is nothing but snow, and wind, and their vicious anger all around him, and Fjord is lost.</p><p>He stumbles forward. He has no guide, no path to follow, and he barely even knows where he’s going, only that there is no safety here.</p><p>He only finds Caduceus when he hears the scream.</p><p>It carries over the storm and Fjord runs towards it, stumbling, heedless, blinking back tears as the storm shoves at him, praying he finds something, anything, anything but a body. There’s a shock of vivid red, too bright in the grey darkness, and Fjord runs faster, digs his heels into the ground when the wind picks up and does not let it push him back.</p><p>Caduceus is crumpled in the snow. Fjord throws himself the last few feet and reaches for him- his head snaps up and when Fjord meets his eyes they are open, glowing, blood-red. He bleeds from the same wounds that nearly killed him when he stepped into the tower, weeping on his neck, his hands- all around them the wind screams, and screams, and Fjord hears the city’s torment.</p><p>It doesn’t like holy magic. And Caduceus has always been holy.</p><p>All the magic Fjord has won’t be enough to drive this thing out. Caduceus tried, and he couldn’t. The Wildmother tried, and She couldn’t. He has no chance.</p><p>But Fjord thinks of lava, and smoke, and gentle hands on his. He thinks of the Wildmother’s warmth on a snowy night, and sign, and what it means to be saved, and Fjord holds on.</p><p>Every drop of power he’s ever had, everything the Wildmother has ever given him, he takes it and he pours it into Caduceus. And beneath that, everything- everything the Wildmother ever saw in him, everything Caduceus still sees, everything he’s ever been given and all he’s become because of it- he calls on it now, and he does not let go.</p><p>He meets red eyes, looks at a being that knows nothing but hunger and how to take, and thinks, <em>You can’t have him. I’m not letting go.</em></p><p>Caduceus blinks, once, and goes limp in Fjord’s arms.</p><p>For a moment, Fjord isn’t even sure he’s breathing.</p><p>And then the red begins to fade. It pulls away from his pupils, his irises, and when Caduceus looks up it is his eyes again.</p><p>“Fjord,” he says. His voice is wrecked, hoarse and barely audible. To Fjord it sounds like a prayer, answered.</p><p>“I’m here,” Fjord says. “I’ve got you.”</p><p>In the distance, he hears Caleb call his name, then Beau. He calls back, and slowly, the voices come closer, until all the rest of them emerge from the snow. They fall in around each other like second nature, and Caleb casts the dome around them.</p><p>“An hour,” he says, and no one questions it. They’ll take an hour, before they go back out into the storm.</p><p>But outside the dome, the snow begins to settle, and together, they watch as the storm dies down, then dissipates, into nothing but faint, soft snowfall.</p><p>Caduceus sleeps into the night, and through. Fjord falls asleep still curled up around him, listening to the sound of his steady, constant breathing. When they wake up it is cold, but the sunrise sparkles on the snow, shining and warm and hopeful.</p><p>Fjord helps him to his feet. Caduceus is still unsteady, but his eyes are bright, and present, and alive.</p><p>“Let’s go home,” Fjord says. Caduceus nods.</p><p>And together, they do.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Title comes from "The Crow," by Dessa. Thank you for reading!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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